BERNARDINO DE LAREDO. - Franciscan mystic, b. in Seville in 1482, d. after Sept. 1540. After studying medicine, he entered the Observant Friars Minor as a lay brother; in the custody of the Holy Angels at Sierra Morena (Seville) he exercised the office of infirmarian. Of a very austere life, pious and meditative, he wrote, besides two medical works (Metaphora medicinae, Seville 1522, and Modus faciendi cum ordine medicandi, ibid. 1527), the famous Subida del Monte Sion (ibid. 1535), reprinted several times. Illustrious for miracles, he died in the fame of sanctity in the convent of St. Francis of the Mount, at Valverde, diocese of Seville; the Franciscan Martyrology commemorates him on 16 April.
The Subida del Monte Sion, which recalls the "Subida del Monte Carmelo" of St. John of the Cross, is divided into three books: knowledge of one's own nothingness, meditation on the mysteries of the holy Humanity of Christ, and contemplation of the Divinity. For its study one must keep in mind the 2nd edition, reworked, especially in the third part, of 1538. In its style and in its whole presentation, the work reflects the northern mysticism of the Low Countries, from which it properly receives its tone and specific character, more than the Spanish. B., in fact, generally very sparing in citing his sources, drew heavily on the Carthusian Henry of Baume (Hugh de Balma), and above all on the Directorium aureum of his confrere Henry Herp (Harphius, d. 1477); but B.'s influence on the great Spanish mystics was notable. In short, repeating, with some reservation, a judgment of a 17th-century apologist of St. John of the Cross (Fray Basilio Ponce de León), one may say that all or almost all the doctrine of the Noche oscura is found in B., while it is also well known that St. Teresa of Avila (Vida, c. 23) read him by preference and had him as a guide in unitive prayer.
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Lorenzo Di Fonzo